Michael is the kind of guy you
love to hate. He is
always in a good mood and always has something positive
to say. When someone would
ask him how he was doing,
he would
reply, "If I were any better,
I
would be twins!" He was a natural motivator.
If an employee was having a bad day, Michael was there
telling the
employee how to look on the positive
side of the situation. Seeing this
style really made me
curious,
so one day I went up to Michael and asked
him, "I don't
get it! You
can't be a positive person all of the
time.
How do you do it?"
Michael replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to
myself, Mike, you have two choices today. You can
choose to be in a good mood
or you can choose
to be in a bad
mood. I choose to be in a
good
mood. Each time something bad happens, I
can
choose to be a victim or I
can choose to
learn from it. I
choose to learn from it. Every time
someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their
complaining or I can point out the positive side of
life. I choose the positive side of life.
"Yeah, right, it isn't that easy,"I protested.
"Yes, it is," Michael said.
"Life is all about choices.
When
you cut away all the junk, every situation
is
a choice. You choose how you
react to
situations. You choose how people will affect your mood.
You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood.
The bottom
line is: It's your choice how you live life."
I reflected on what Michael said. Soon thereafter,
I left
the Tower Industry to start my own
business.
We lost touch, but I
often thought about
him when I made a choice about life instead of
reacting to it. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Several years later, I
heard that Michael was involved
in
a serious accident, falling some 60 feet
from a
communications tower.
After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of
intensive care, Michael was
released from the hospital
with
rods placed in his back. I saw Michael
about
six months after the
accident. When I asked him how
he was, he replied. "If I were any better,
I'd be twins.
Wanna see my
scars?" I declined to see his wounds,
but did ask him what had gone
through his mind
as the accident
took place.
"The first thing that went
through my mind was the
well being
of my soon to be born daughter,"
Michael replied. "Then, as I lay on
the ground,
I remembered that I had two choices: I could
choose to
live or I could choose to die."
"I
chose to live."
"Weren't you scared? Did you lose
consciousness?" I asked.
Michael continued, "...the
paramedics were great.
They kept
telling me I was going to be fine. But when
they wheeled me into the ER and
I saw the
expressions on the
faces of the doctors
and
nurses, I got really scared. In their
eyes,
I read 'he's a dead man.
I knew I needed to take action."
"What did you do?" I asked
"Well, there was a big burly
nurse
shouting questions at me,"said Michael.
"She asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes, I replied."
The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited
for my reply. I took a deep breath and
yelled, "Gravity."
Over their
laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to
live. Operate on me as if I am
alive, not dead'."
Michael lived, thanks to the
skill of his doctors,
but also
because of his amazing attitude.
I
learned from him that every day we have
the choice
to live fully. Attitude,
after all, is everything.
(author unknown)
